Ueno Bookstore | BOUNDLESS | World Design Awards 2021

BOUNDLESS: Runner-Up of World Design Awards 2021. The story of time in a bookstore grows upward in the middle of the city Memories in books are about the city and the self.

It is said that the depth of a city’s culture is judged by how many bookstores it has. Bookstores and cities express and co-exist with each other in the witness of time and space. Walk into a city, remember a city, and fall in love with a city… People use bookstores as a warm carrier of collective memory to explore the past and future of the city.

Huizhou Wild Island Cultural Life Community is famous for its accumulation of Dongpo Temple, the former site of Yuedong Distillery and the former site of East Lake Hotel. Ueno Book House is located here. It awakens the industrial civilization engraved in the depths of history with the scent of books. Old memories overlap with new stories, and the past and changes of the city, which have been left behind by the passing of time, are preserved, shaped and regenerated.

Four seasons under the chimney and you in the book

The design team was inspired to connect the history and the environment with the architecture. With respect to the history, the library, from planning to reconstruction to reappearance, is always given a time property that flows in stillness.

This attribute of time displays from the moment seeing the bookstore. For the old chimney, the ancient bricks and tiles, the former courtyard wall, and the grass and trees witnessing the time, etc. the preservation and restoration is the best presentation of the uniqueness of a field domain.

Become emotional symbiosis, breaking the borders of loneliness

The symbiotic relationship between people and bookstores is guided by spirit and connected by emotion, which is the focus of Ueno Bookhouse’s design. After the original sloping building structure has been corrected, the layout of the space has been reorganized, and the action track and emotional appeal of people in the bookstore will be reorganized and presented.

In the library of nearly 300 square meters, coffee and books are the main functional forms.

Time and space shift, art nourishes the spiritual world

The transformation of space brings the change of mood. The staircase presented by modern means is simple and pure. The thick cement ladder and the thin tempered glass handrail form a sharp contrast. In the spirit of exploration, proceed up the steps to the second floor area. Compared to the ground floor, it feels more modern, and it is as important to look back as it is to look forward.

With time as a note, integrating natural rebirth

“We are not all novels, nor are we all short stories. In the end, we become a collection of life works.” People, buildings and cities constitute a complete story with fragments of memory. Every daily life based on reality and with longing for it casts a beautiful immortality in the long history.

Project Details
Firm
BOUNDLESS

Project Name
Ueno Bookstore

Architect/Designer
Wenke Lin

World Design Awards Category
Commercial Interior Built

Project Location
Huizhou City, Guangdong Province

Team
Wenke Lin, Zhengyuan Sun, Meijia Pan, Jiaxin Ye, Xiangzhen Ye

Country
China

Photography ©Credit
©YESONG